Essential Guide To Personality Type

Personality Type is more complex than you have possibly been lead to believe.

What do we mean by “Personality Type” ?

Carl Jung wrote a book in 1921 called “Psychological Types”, which is the single most influential work in this arena. One definition is;

The psychological classification of different types of individuals.

And yet we find ourselves in a bit of a paradox. Jung also believed that we are all unique, so squeezing people into a specific type goes against this notion of individualism. Jung didn’t create labels for specific types, however he did have six measurements that he used to determine type.

Labels were introduced by system providers, many of which were based on Jung’s research.

What’s Your Personality Type ?

A personality type test is designed to help you discover your preferred behaviour. PeopleMaps doesn’t believe in using labels however we do provide a free report to help you understand more about yourself.

What Jung Had To Say About This

Jung his scales combined to determine a TYPE rather than try and measure individual personality TRAITS. His opinion was that the amount of say introversion etc, a person had did not affect their overall preference.

Jung opinion was that traits may vary day to day due to a range of environmental factors, however personality type will change little, even over a lifetime.

This is why PeopleMaps is not a personality traits type test.

When Is Your Personality Type Formed?

There is much debate about this and although PeopleMaps research is anecdotal regarding this, we would deternine that personality is largely formed even before birth. When exactly before birth is unclear.

Having said that and to compound the complexity of this, we do not believe that personality is genetic. We are conducting more research in this area however initial findings are that personality type maybe one of the few factors completely isolated from genetics. Children can vary significantly from both parents, to the extent that their personality could be described as random.

Can You Change it?

In a world obsessed with personal development, there is a common misconception that we can “improve” it. At PeopleMaps we believe your personality type remains in tact all of your life. However what you can do is develop your understanding of it.

As life happens to us we often find ourselves bent out of shape. It’s not that our personality has changed but simply that we can find ourselves adjusting and adjusting until we loose sight of who we really are.

A mid-life crisis is often when someone reaches the point where they can bend no more and have to once again find their original self.

What’s The Ideal Personality Type ?

You may have completed a personality type quiz in the past and wondered what’s the ideal. Well the truth is that there is no such thing. You are perfect as you are. There is no such thing as the ideal. None are better than any other.

How Do You Calculate Your Personality Type?

There are many simple questionnaires that claim to help you do this but frankly it’s a little more complex. The PeopleMaps questionnaire calculates how much of each psyche energy you use and from this cocktail determines your preferred behaviour.

What About The Myers Briggs Personality Types

Once of the most popular systems is Myers Briggs, also known as MBTI. It originated around the 1950’s and is a Jungian system.

PeopleMaps differs from Myers Briggs in a couple of ways;

PeopleMaps does not use labels, respecting you are unique. Although it’s convenient to provide labels and categorise everyone into neat boxes, it loses sight of the fact that we are all unique. Convenience is no substitute for reality.

PeopleMaps is developed exclusively for the Internet, using the latest technology.

PeopleMaps recognises that some mobility exists and that you do vary a little from one week to the next. So although you may not change fundamentally over your lifetime, you do have the ability to adapt to certain situations. It’s important to recognise if this is happening and to what extend and for how long. A little is generally OK. A large adaptation for a long period of time is likely to be stressful.

What Do We Mean By “Personality Type A B”

This was a very crude form of “typing”, with People with Type A personalities being high-achieving “workaholics” and Type B personality generally living at a lower stress level and working steadily. Connection to the tobacco companies largely discredited this approach.

Personality Type C is actually referring to a different system entirely, the DISC system and should not be confused with Type A and and Type B

What Is The Personality Color Type

Dr Hartman developed the colour (color) personality type, where personality was divided into red, blue, white and yellow. Other system have also used colour including Insights, who use red, blue, green and yellow.